From: pacodegallo@attbi.com
Date: Mon Oct 07 2002 - 01:34:22 BST
Hi John,
JOHN:
I see you as a card carrying conservative. :-)
PACO:
Yeah, I am one of those pro-choice, anti-McCarthyism,
non-gun-owning, equal rights loving, pro-gay, keep-the-
right-wing-out-of-the-bedroom, anti-military coup, pro-
social safety net,non-lassaiz faire economic, pro-ACLU
card carrying conservatives. But go ahead and put me in
whatever box THAT fits in.
J:
> Sam's definition is that "conservatism as a political
philosophy is ...
> about placing trust in institutions that have stood
the test of time".
> Institutions would appear to be primarily social
level constructs, hence
> this seems to confirm David's thesis.
P:
I have been violently agreeing with David on this
point. See my old post below. Hence it also confirms my
thesis.
OLD POST:
"Conservatism is indeed the
position (which exists in both parties btw) of
defending established social patterns of quality from
destruction. The threat can come from social,
biological or intellectual patterns.
As such, if you rewind history, the CONSERVATIVES of
the time would indeed be the ones that defended the
patterns of the time -- be they the rights of
aristocracy, social stratification, Victorian mores
etc, etc etc. The LIBERAL position would indeed be the
one that AT THE TIME encouraged such new intellectually
based social patterns as:
DEMOCRACY
FREE ENTERPRISE
TRIAL BY JURY
FREE SPEECH
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
WOMENS RIGHTS
CIVIL RIGHTS
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
SOCIAL SAFETY NETS (such as of LBJ and FDR)
MARXISM/LENINISM
REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR WOMEN
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR HOMOSEXUALS
ETC, ETC
David is right that each of these ideas went through
(or are going through) a period of struggle where the
conservatives of whatever parties existed at the time
defended that which was established and liberals fought
for trying new ideas. Let us not oversimplify though,
during this battle, the fight was accompanied by social-
level power struggles for those that would win and lose
based upon the outcome of the struggle.
Platt is right that the Conservative position played an
important role in defending and preserving the survival
of the social organization during such traumatic
changes, as well as of defending it from low quality
ideas or adjustments (Lenninism for example).
J:
> Later he says "Fundamental to the Conservative
attitude is a distrust of
> ideology; more broadly, it is a distrust of new
ideas, especially those that
> are advanced as being ... more rational than those
currently prevailing".
>
> Pretty clear to me. New, more rational, ideas are not
to be trusted. Hardly
> an openess to the dynamic quality to be found at the
intellectual level.
>
> He goes on "a Conservative attitude places a higher
barrier to entry around
> the social level, and seeks to allow only those
intellectual level
> innovations that have demonstrated the ability to
static latch improvements
> in a way that
> preserves social value".
P:
Again, I both agree with you and wrote just this last
week.
OLD POST:
However, there is something important that
David completely misses. Namely that the intellectually
inspired ideas of the past become the conventional
social patterns of the present. As such, CONSERVATIVES
of later eras BY DEFINITION are fighting to preserve
such INTELLECTUALLY-driven, SOCIALLY proven ideas as:
DEMOCRACY
FREE ENTERPRISE
TRIAL BY JURY
FREE SPEECH
LIMITED GOVERNMENT/CITIZEN RIGHTS
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
WOMENS RIGHTS
CIVIL RIGHTS
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
These are now all established conservative positions
(conservative today is virtually synonymous with
liberal of 200 years ago). Other ideas are still
enmeshed in the struggle.
J:
> In Pirsig's terms, this is waiting until a hundred
years after the event to
> pick the saviours from the degenerates. Sadly, if
these conservatives are in
> power, the idea will never get the chance to static
latch, hence can never
> meet their criteria.
P:
Yes, and if JUST the liberals are in power, you will
get a great supply of ideas , some which will work,
some of which are absurd, some of which will lead to
the self-destruction of the society, and many of which
are just liberal versions of David's same old power
politics. I have given oodles of examples of such
social-level liberal stuff, but for some reason this
part of my message seems to never be read. A society of
all conservatives is Iran. A society of all liberals
was early Cuba or the USSR, or better yet, Tanzania. I
encourage you to look in to what happenned with each.
J:
Again David's argument is offered fullsome support.
P:
No it does not. Because his position is that
conservatism is anti-intellectual. He is building up a
house of cards to establish that his liberal ideas are
intellectual and that conservativism is some kind of
synonym for regressive, stupid, evil, embarrassing,
tribalistic dolts. Furthermore, he continuously tries
to establish that anyone disagreeing with him is by
definition card-carrying member of the dolts and thus
unworthy of engaging in the discussion.
He is right that conservativism is less dynamic, he is
even right that it is less intellectually focused. But,
he makes two massive errors.
His first error is that he neglects the intellectual
value of proving ideas and of defending past good ideas
from replacement with newer but lesser ideas. These
characteristics are both empirical and pragmatic.
The second problem is that David has failed to address
the fact that LIBERALISM is also hopelessly intertwined
with politics and social institutions. In other words,
he grossly oversimplifies in both directions (despite
numerous examples offered that establish this fact).
Both views are necessary for a healthy, dynamic,
intellectually-influenced successful society. Either
view on its own will be subject to real bad mojo. I
can give numerous examples of successful mixed
societies and disastrously ineffective lop-sided ones.
I SEE THE DANGER AND THE "STUPIDITY" NOT IN
CONSERVATIVES OR LIBERALS, BUT OF ONE WITHOUT THE
OTHER. And for the record, I think this is exactly the
type of vision David does have.
Where do you stand John?
Paco
PS -- I realize I just reverted to the "stupid"
argument. This makes me stupid too, so there! (I will
clean it up if anyone needs me to)
PPS -- Attached is last week's post in entirety.
To the gang,
The argument has always been that the BUSH IS STUPID
position says a heck of a lot more about those that
write it than about the intended target. I REPEAT, I
know nothing of the man's intelligence, I don't
especially respect many of the decisions he has made,
but the HE IS AN EVIL STUPID DICK level of
argumentation is way, way below the expected level of
discourse from this or any other forum. It is simply
childish. Could we try to take it up a notch? Squonk?
DMB?
Now, let me address David's attempt to equate
conservatism with anti-intellect. First, let me start
that there is a good reason to make this mistake. A
very good reason actually. Conservatism is indeed the
position (which exists in both parties btw) of
defending established social patterns of quality from
destruction. The threat can come from social,
biological or intellectual patterns.
As such, if you rewind history, the CONSERVATIVES of
the time would indeed be the ones that defended the
patterns of the time -- be they the rights of
aristocracy, social stratification, Victorian mores
etc, etc etc. The LIBERAL position would indeed be the
one that AT THE TIME encouraged such new intellectually
based social patterns as:
DEMOCRACY
FREE ENTERPRISE
TRIAL BY JURY
FREE SPEECH
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
WOMENS RIGHTS
CIVIL RIGHTS
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
SOCIAL SAFETY NETS (such as of LBJ and FDR)
MARXISM/LENINISM
REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR WOMEN
EQUAL OPPORTUNITY FOR HOMOSEXUALS
ETC, ETC
David is right that each of these ideas went through
(or are going through) a period of struggle where the
conservatives of whatever parties existed at the time
defended that which was established and liberals fought
for trying new ideas. Let us not oversimplify though,
during this battle, the fight was accompanied by social-
level power struggles for those that would win and lose
based upon the outcome of the struggle.
Platt is right that the Conservative position played an
important role in defending and preserving the survival
of the social organization during such traumatic
changes, as well as of defending it from low quality
ideas or adjustments (Lenninism for example).
So, on the surface, it seems that both Platt and David
are right. However, there is something important that
David completely misses. Namely that the intellectually
inspired ideas of the past become the conventional
social patterns of the present. As such, CONSERVATIVES
of later eras BY DEFINITION are fighting to preserve
such INTELLECTUALLY-driven, SOCIALLY proven ideas as:
DEMOCRACY
FREE ENTERPRISE
TRIAL BY JURY
FREE SPEECH
LIMITED GOVERNMENT/CITIZEN RIGHTS
THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
WOMENS RIGHTS
CIVIL RIGHTS
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
These are now all established conservative positions
(conservative today is virtually synonymous with
liberal of 200 years ago). Other ideas are still
enmeshed in the struggle. Liberal positions now push
the envelope in new directions, some contradicting
previous liberal positions, others taking past advances
further (even more rights, even easier collective
bargaining, etc).
So, David completely misses the dynamic dimension of
terms that evolve over time. As such, he misses that
in the USSR or China, that the recent struggles against
Socialism involved the Conservatives of those countries
defending David's intellectual nirvana from liberals
touting what conservatives are defending in this
country.(please re-read carefully)
In summary, CONSERVATIVE is a term with an evolving
definition. It refers both to that generic political
philosophy defending static patterns, as well as to the
particular defended patterns of the time.
David could improve his argument if he changed it from
intellectual vs anti-intellectual to one of static vs
dynamic. The liberal wing is more dynamic, and thus,
according to the MOQ, more moral. The MOQ would warn
that we need both forces, and I would agree. The
conservatives aren't taking us anywhere new -- that
will have to come from the liberals. All the
conservative positions can do is explore minor
variations on old themes and defend against BAD ideas.
Paco
PS -- As warned above,it is important to separate
intellectual patterns from old fashioned social level
self interest. Conservatives pandering to big business
and agriculture or liberals pandering to unions,
lawyers and government employees is no longer part of
the intellectual struggle, though it may derive its
roots from the intellectual divisions. The point is
that most of the political struggles of our day are
just good old fashioned power grabs. Again,
representing this part of the political struggle as
intellectual vs social is pure BS. It does complicate
matters immensely though.
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